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Eggs and Endorphins

Holiday wrap-up

1/4/16 04:10 pm - Holiday wrap-up

We didn't celebrate Chanukah much this year; I think the only candle-lighting we attended was Ellen's, at the NYRSF holiday reading. I did purchase dark chocolate Chanukah gelt and shared it, mostly too late -- and I also got some US money bags of gelt that we're still going through very slowly (and also some blue Ingress NYC Resistance gelt coins that someone comissioned for the NYC Resistance holiday party). And, as the previous post showed, I designed another Dreydl game (I did eventually find a dreydl in our house; a disk design that we inherited from Lisa's father, but I'm not happy with how it spins, so I might want to get more standard tops to test with).

For December 24, we did the usual Julebord at Aquevit (we don't celebrate Christmas, but do occasionally celebrate Yule, and have habitually attended the Dec 24 Julebord for the last 10 years or so with a gathering of friends who were doing it for longer). It's a very traditionally Scandanavian Julebord -- a buffet with 9+ preparations of pickled herring, various kinds of preserved salmon, cheeses, a small selection of traditional scandanavian hot foods (Janeson's temptation, sweedish meatballs, ribs, a roast meat), venison, and a shameless selection of deserts.

Every year over the past few, people have complained about how the board was getting worse -- not bad eough not to do it next year, but enough that it was noticably worse than the glory days when the group first did it. Not this year, though -- apparently, the old head chef of the resturuant has retired, and this year the new head chef (formerly the desert chef for Aquevit) was in charge of the whole board. She changed some things -- specifically, she went almost entirely to smaller portions, but more variety (except for the rollmops; a herring preparation that by necessity can't really be shrunk), which everyone really appreciated, and the much greater variety in foods on offer couldn't but be appreciated by the crowd. As it happens, when I asked about the changes, she was standing and looking at people taking from the buffet, so I went over and contratulated/praised her -- and later, she went over and greeted our table (and got praise and congratulations from the table, which contained Lisa and I, who have been doing this for about a decade, Rich and Anne, who have done it maybe 2-5 times before, two new attendees, and Stephen Tihor and his wife, Kate (Kate's only done it maybe two times before, since before that she had to work Christmas eve as nurses don't get a lot of rest; we went over after the meal a few times to visit and comminsurate with her; Stephen has been there the entire time, of course, maybe 15+ times in all if not more).

For New Years eve, we went to our now traditional party, and I prepared a honey apply Tiramisu (with no coffee or alcohol). The party was a bit lower keyed than it's been in the past; there was a lower invite list than usual, and enough friends that don't see one another often that we mostly talked rather than playing games (I did get a few rounds of Code Words in, though; a game that's been going around where in each round, one person on each side takes the role of the spy master -- who tries to guide their team to select the words which represent the team's agents while avoiding opposing agents, innocent bystanders, and, worst of all (and triggering an instant round loss) the assassin -- using a single word and a number each turn as their only communication to their teams). Probably just as well, given that at a party by the same hosts a few months ago, the game playing turned to disaster, as someone left an open container of punch on the table right next to a large, long, cardboard-chit filled, and expensive game--which I proceeded to knock over on my way back in onto the game midway through. Not an experience I wish to repeat (and which, combined with a play-through of the new Dominion expansion a few months later which also occasioned a spilled drink, made me much more willing to enforce a "no open containers of liquid near the games" rule in general when I play. I wasn't all that pleased by the apple honey tiramisu -- I added some cinnamon on top which I thought overpowered the more subtle apple and honey flavors, and it didn't really have enough time before serving for the cookies to reach a proper moist consistency (I prepared it early afternoon, and hoped the two hours in the fridge after we arrived would be enough to put it over the edge)--plus I regretted not putting more of the homemade apple sauce (chopped, but not peeled gala apples, stewed for an hour or two while doing the other preparations, with just a touch of honey put into the mix, and then boiled almost to the point of the liquid boiling out, and slightly mashed after softening) into the dish rather than just using it as the dipping sauce for the lady fingers--but most of the tray was still gone by the time we left, so clearly not everyone agreed with me.

New Years day, we went (as we have for the last 2-3 years, I think) to the Neilsen Hayden's party--bringing a new apple tiramisu that repaired all the flaws I had with the first one (honey on top, not cinnamon, prepared the night before, the entire remainder of the apple sauce used to dip and flavor the ladyfingers and the remainder used as a layer on its own), as well as a more traditional tiramisu with kaluha, fresh coffee, and cocoa, which got praise from, of all people, Ellen Datlow. It was a lot of fun, with munches and conversations with both close friends and people in the publishing industry (and sometimes people who are both, like Moshe Feder).

It's hard for me to get enough of it -- although the variety is large enough for Aquevit's board that I can mostly make one pass through the fish, picking up seconds on the fish I really liked the best when I make my second pass and grab various other savories (even as hungry as I was this time, I tend to make 3 passes; one for just fish, one for seconds on a few fishes, other savories, and a bit of desert, and a third just for a selection of deserts, plus maybe something I can't go the night without another taste of).

I can't say much bad about traditional NY Jewish things to do with fish, either (although there's a fair amount of overlap -- Russ and Daughters, which is my go-to place in NYC for showing off classic piscine deli food, has great lox and sturgeon, of course, but also has a fantastic gravlox, and is one of the two places in NYC you can get the Dutch "neu Herring" during the month or so it's in season).

I like Swedish meatballs, but I can rarely get some that are any good. (I've been avoiding Ikea's since the scandal over their meat supply.) Best so far, in a small pot at a cozy restaurant in a Swedish colony town in the middle of nowhere, Illinois.

B. bought some gelt this year which proved on inspection to be plastic, not foil-covered chocolate at all. Rats.

*nod* I don't necessarily go out of my way for meatballs, Swedish or otherwise, but if I'm in a solid Scandinavian restaurant anyway (in NYC, we've gone to Aquavit and Scandinavia House), there's an obvious thing to have a few of.

Mmmmmmm,Swedish meatballs! I have *no* idea when I might have a chance to make it to NYC, but if I do, I'd be *very* interested in checking out either Aquevit or Scandinavia House.

Wonder if it's possible to concoct a gluten-free cookie for use in the tiramisu? I'd be willing to try such by starting with whatever cookie recipe you use now and waving my gluten-free baking wand* over it. By which I mean a particular blend of flours, meals, and xanthan gum that I've had excellent success with in gingerbread, scones, banana bread, and cookies.

Excellent! We could totally use more excuses to go back to either more than the once a year we normally do Aquevit.

I expect it totally is. I mostly use store-bought savoiardi -- because my one attempt to make them homemade wasn't successful and -was- very labor intensive (compared to the rest of the effort of making tiramisu or related deserts, which is fairly minimal; maybe half an hour to mix up the filling, plus whatever effort I need to use to make a dip for the cookies (trivial if it's just making coffee or tea and adding (or not adding) a liquor; a lot more involved if I'm making a sauce or compote), plus maybe 10 mintues to fill and layer the tiramisu itself.

The key bits of savoiardi here is, of course, the crisp-ness to retain its shape while absorbing not only the dip but enough of the filling to be infused with mascapone, custardy goodness. This looks like it should work nicely. I'd definately pick the variation that gets extra crispness for tiramisu -- as I mentioned, it's what lets the cookie absorb quite a bit of custard overnight without becoming shapeless (also, I think the crispness probably allows it to absorb more moisture from the custard; after all, it's easy to replace what isn't already there).